"He said his client turned down a pretrial settlement offer of $900,000, an amount that would have left her with next to nothing after a medical lien, experts' costs and his own fees were deducted."

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Yay the Jury system in Ca Actually worked twice this month!!

Swing and a Miss If the dumb twat had taken the 900k up front she would have been debt free it looks like! Money ahead in my book. But her scumbag lawyer who just cost all M/C enthusiast's more money would have had her file bankruptcy either way, to avoid paying her medical bills.
Now Harley raise's there aleady overinflated prices by a little to cover the cost of the lawyer. Did you notice that they hired a local guy! I think that tells you that they never had a doubt that this was gonna be a winner for them! Otherwise they would have had one of there NY big shot lawyer's handle it.

A large percentage of the riders out there don't know how to properly use their brakes with the most common mistake being over use of the rear brake and under use of the front brake. Why do you thing so many bikes come with linked brakes?

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agreed.

those who don't learn/practice proper braking technique because they have linked brakes are idiots, too.

we need to train away that reflex reaction. this guy apparently did not.

assuming he is not full of crap about thinking the bike had ABS, he may have decided he did not need to train away that reflex reaction because the ABS would allow him to just grab the brake and the ABS would take care of actually braking correctly for him.

if he didn't think he had ABS, he may have actually trained away that reflex reaction...though i also doubt it.

in any case, it seems he is an idiot. he is either an idiot for thinking he didn't have to learn to brake properly because the bike had ABS, or he is an idiot for thinking he didn't have to learn to brake properly even though the bike did not have ABS.

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I agree, this is my first bike with ABS and within two weeks I was in a parking lot learning what it felt like when ABS kicked in, then learnig to have some trust in it and it takes trust when you are basically trying to lock up the front wheel of big heavy bike (rear is easy and a good place to start). It took a lot of time and even today it's hard to un-train all the years of non-abs. ABS brakes require training more than some realize as do non-abs brakes. I couldn't imgaine experiencing ABS for the first time becuase it was necessary. BTW I like having ABS and I think it has saved my butt a couple of times, but will never know for sure because ABS did the job for me.

If the ABS light lit up on start up then yeah maybe HD should pay a bit as that would lead anyone to think there was ABS, and I brake a hell of a lot different on an ABS bike than on my non ABS bikes. If theres just the "dummy" indicator that never lights up, then I hope HD doesnt pay a cent. However if I were HD reguardless of the outcome I would change things, so only ABS equipped bikes have the indicator. On Kawasakis there are spots for things like ABS lights or check engine lights, but on bikes without that equipment, it is a black blank, not even a hint of the indicator is there. Might be a good idea heading forward...

Thanks. There's a fair number of people who show up for a class knowing that braking is a skill we're going to work on that don't even know if they have ABS- and unlike probably a lot of people here, a lot of people that have it have never tried it. We encourage that- so they know what it feels like and they can stop being afraid of it.

I know someone who was sure his car had a TPMS because the owner's manual talked about it. When I pointed out he had an almost flat front tire, he assured me I was wrong because the warning light didn't come on. I suggested his warning light was broken. So he drove to the dealership (flat tire and all) to get that checked out....

I also met a person who complained that her power steering didn't work unless her front tires were at 90 PSI :huh Yep- no power steering in a '79 Corolla.

If your too dumb to read the owners manual you're too dumb to own a motorcycle. Not new but a largely ignored fact.

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Unfortunately you only need money or credit to buy a bike. No ability or brains , just like cars. Ever see the shopping cart traffic jams at the grocery store? Most of those people drove there in cars.

Thanks. There's a fair number of people who show up for a class knowing that braking is a skill we're going to work on that don't even know if they have ABS- and unlike probably a lot of people here, a lot of people that have it have never tried it. We encourage that- so they know what it feels like and they can stop being afraid of it.

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The first time my wife had her car ABS come on, driving in snow (this was several years ago), the first thing she did was let go of the brakes so it wouldn't do that any more. She had no idea what it was, thought the buzzing/pulsating she felt in the pedal meant she was doing something bad to the brake and she should get off it. Like she should just crash into the cars stopped in front of her, without braking. Luckily I was with her and told her to push the brake pedal "to the floor" and KEEP IT THERE no matter what noise it made. Quickest way I could find to convey the general concept of what was needed to prevent us from crashing into the cars already stopped for the red light.